[Smaug] SCO - was A quick scripting puzzle

[Mr. B]

Howdy Meg!
Do you remember your favorite Sys admin from SCO? Yup
it is I Barrett in the flesh. Talk to you soon.

--- Anthony Ettinger <apwebdesign at yahoo.com> wrote:

> ot
> 
> --- Meg McRoberts <dreidellhasa at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > This is very interesting...  How many ex-SCO-ites
> > are
> > on this list?  This isn't exactly how it looked
> from
> > the inside...
> > 
> > Xenix ran on the 286.  SCO UNIX was based on the
> > SVR3
> > kernel, which SCO licensed from AT&T.  I think the
> > original
> > UNIX systems SCO produced were marketed as SCO
> UNIX,
> > then
> > the marketing folks changed the name to OpenServer
> > to reflect
> > what was then an "open architecture" -- certainly
> > not Open
> > Source but with full support for third party
> > software at
> > both the user and kernel level.  As I recall, for
> a
> > year
> > or two, we had the non-graphical SCO UNIX and
> > OpenServer
> > was SCO UNIX with X11 and the graphical desktop on
> > top.
> > 
> > We did invest a lot in providing backward
> > compatibility
> > for Xenix drivers and applications and almost
> > everything
> > did run on OpenServer.
> > 
> > SCO had a phenomenal licensing agreement for the
> > SVR3
> > kernel so it was never feasible to port to an SVR4
> > base
> > although we incorporated many SVR4 features into
> the
> > OpenServer kernel.
> > 
> > UnixWare as well as ownership of all the SVR
> kernels
> > came
> > with the 1995 acquisition.  The original plan was
> to
> > do
> > a system that incorporated the elegant kernel
> > technology
> > of UnixWare with the OpenServer user interface,
> > which was
> > very popular with the customers.  Alas, political
> > skirmishes
> > prevented that from happening at the time although
> I
> > hear
> > that the new release does exactly that.
> > 
> > It is interesting that the view from outside SCO
> is
> > that,
> > since SCO could run most Xenix applications and
> > drivers,
> > it WAS Xenix...
> > 
> > meg
> > 
> > --- Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Quoting cerise at armory.com (cerise at armory.com):
> > > 
> > > > OpenServer took much of its userspace from SCO
> > XENIX and much of the
> > > > underlying structure from SCO UNIX.
> > > 
> > > There was an import of some code into XENIX from
> > SysV r3, under
> > > a licence deal from AT&T -- not from "SCO UNIX",
> > as there was (really)
> > > no such thing at the time.  (See below.)
> > > 
> > > [The Open UNIX aka ex-UnixWare product:]
> > > 
> > > > I can only attest to a horrible userspace.
> > > 
> > > Oh yeah.  
> > > 
> > > I was proud owner in around 1989 of AT&T System
> V
> > release 3.22, which I 
> > > picked up for $50 from Data Preference in San
> > Mateo:  It was just
> > > thoroughly awful in dozens of ways, including
> the
> > absence of "Berkeley 
> > > enhancements" that were later merged into the
> > system when they created
> > > System Vr4.  It didn't last long on my system,
> > since I knew from using
> > > BSD at Evans Hall, UCB, that Unix didn't _have_
> to
> > suck that badly.  The 
> > > only part that I kept (for a decade) was the
> shelf
> > of manuals that came
> > > with it.  That part was cool.  
> > > 
> > > I also bought and used for a while, a couple of
> > years later, one of
> > > Novell's UnixWare releases (based, obviously, on
> > SysVr4).  That was one
> > > of the ones that included the ability to run
> Win16
> > desktop applications,
> > > which was really wacky to see on your Motif/X11
> > desktop.  The suckage
> > > was gone, but it was a little ponderous and
> slow,
> > and I pitched it for
> > > 386BSD 0.1 and later Linux.
> > > 
> > > > Now, SCO UNIX (also known as SCO SystemV/386)
> > coexisted with XENIX
> > > > (and, in fact, I have a handy driver book here
> > which details the
> > > > differences between the two and the steps
> needed
> > to port drivers from
> > > > one to the other.  That particular line
> > disappeared as OpenServer
> > > > became the clear choice between the two.
> > > 
> > > Um, "SCO System V/386" was yet another name for
> > one of the XENIX
> > > releases.  It's entirely possible they might
> have
> > paid AT&T the
> > > necessary trademark licensing fees to use the
> name
> > "UNIX" for one of
> > > those, but it really never was _UNIX_ in the
> sense
> > that its foundational
> > > kernel, libs, and other basic architecture were
> > still XENIX, not UNIX.
> > > That was the product line that eventually came
> to
> > be called Open Server,
> > > which is what they (or rather, their Utah
> > successor in interest) call it
> > > now.
> > > 
> > > That's all one product, not two.  XENIX = SCO
> > System V/386 = Open Server.
> > > If they called that thing "SCO UNIX" during the
> > pre-Novell-deal time
> > > period (which is possible, though I never saw
> it),
> > then that was
> > > strictly a marketing label:  It was still really
> > XENIX.
> > > 
> > > SCO didn't have a "genetic" UNIX (to borrow
> Peter
> > Salus's term) until
> > > the 1995 purchase of certain (disputed) UnixWare
> > rights from Novell.
> > > _That_ is SCO Group's second product line.
> > > 
> > > But, frankly, I considered both of them pretty
> > terrible even compared to
> > > 386BSD 0.1.  ;->
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Smaug mailing list
> > > Smaug at lists.svlug.org
> > > http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/smaug
> > > Smaug home page: http://www.scruz.org/
> > > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> 
> 
> Anthony Ettinger
> ph: (408) 656-2473
> web: http://www.apwebdesign.com
> 
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